Chapter 5 #2
I stay exactly where I am, furious and exhausted and determined to finish at least one thing on my task list today without interference from an overbearing Orc CEO who apparently thinks he can just command me around like one of his subordinates.
I make it maybe ninety seconds before I hear heavy footsteps coming back down the path.
Thrall reappears carrying a plate piled with food, steam still rising from what looks like grilled chicken and roasted vegetables and fresh bread, and he walks directly over to where I'm standing and holds it out.
"Eat," he says.
"I told you, I need to finish—"
"Eat," he repeats, and his voice has gone very quiet, very firm, the kind of tone that doesn't leave room for negotiation.
"Or I will stand here holding this plate until you do, and we both know I can stand here considerably longer than you can ignore food that smells this good when you haven't eaten since breakfast."
He's right, and I hate that he's right, hate that my stomach chooses that exact moment to make a very audible growling sound that undermines any argument I was trying to construct.
I take the plate.
"Thank you," I mutter, because my mother raised me with manners even if she didn't adequately prepare me for massive Orcs with boundary issues.
Thrall doesn't leave. He just lowers himself onto one of the log benches I've arranged around the fire pit, his sheer size making the sturdy wood look suddenly fragile, and settles in with the clear body language of someone who intends to stay until I've finished eating.
I sit down on the opposite bench, as far away as the seating arrangement allows, and start eating because apparently that's the only way to make him leave and let me get back to work.
The food is good. Annoyingly good. The chicken is perfectly seasoned and the vegetables are still hot and the bread is fresh enough that steam escapes when I tear into it, and I'm hungrier than I realized, hungry enough that I finish half the plate before I even register what I'm doing.
Thrall doesn't say anything. He just sits there, massive and silent, watching the lake with a peaceful expression, and the quiet between us shifts into something less combative, something that feels dangerously close to comfortable.
"Why do you care," I say finally, because I need to understand this, need to figure out what his angle is, why a CEO who was planning to fire me this morning is now making sure I eat dinner.
He's silent for long enough that I think he might not answer. Then he turns his head and looks at me directly, and there's something in his eyes that I can't quite name, something intense and complicated.
"Because you stood in front of my executives with an airhorn," he says, "and you didn't flinch.
Because you tied yourself to my leg for a three-legged race even though you were terrified.
Because you're small and human and completely out of your depth, and you keep showing up anyway.
That kind of stubbornness shouldn't be wasted on someone who doesn't appreciate it. "
The words settle into my chest, warm and uncomfortable and entirely too honest, and I don't know what to say to that, don't know how to respond to the first genuine compliment I've received in months that isn't wrapped in criticism or conditional on performance metrics.
"I wasn't terrified," I say finally, which is possibly the least important part of what he just said but it's the only part I can safely address without my voice doing something embarrassing.
Thrall's mouth shifts into something that might be the ghost of a smile, a barely-there curve of his lips that transforms his entire face for just a moment. "You were terrified. Your pulse was racing. I could hear it from where I was standing, even over the shouting and the chaos."
I feel my face flush, that telltale heat creeping up my neck. "That's creepy," I shoot back, defensive, because the alternative is acknowledging that he noticed something about me that I didn't even fully realize about myself—that my body betrayed me in a way my voice never would.
"That's biology," he replies simply, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, as if there's nothing remotely unsettling about the fact that he was paying that close attention to the physical details of my fear.
He says it with the same tone he'd use to explain a technical specification or a market trend, utterly unmoved by my objection, completely confident in his assessment of what my own body was doing.
I finish the rest of the plate in silence, hyper-aware of his presence beside me, of the way the temperature has started to drop as the sun sinks lower, of the complicated knot of gratitude and resentment and something else I'm not ready to examine sitting heavy in me.
When I set the empty plate down, Thrall stands, takes it without comment, and walks back toward the lodge.
After he leaves I turn back to the bonfire setup, determined to finish before the evening activity officially starts.
I make it through stacking the kindling, arranging the larger logs in the pyramid structure that will burn cleanly and safely, double-checking the fire extinguisher placement and the seating capacity, when I feel the first drop hit my shoulder.
I look up.
The sky has gone dark, heavy clouds rolling in from over the mountain ridge with alarming speed, and even as I'm processing this, even as I'm mentally recalculating the evening schedule and trying to figure out indoor backup options, the sky opens up.
It's not rain. It's a deluge, a torrential downpour that soaks through my blazer in seconds, that turns the carefully stacked firewood into a useless wet mess, that sends the carefully arranged seating cushions sliding sideways in rapidly forming puddles.
I stand there, water streaming down my face, my perfect chignon collapsing into wet strands that plaster themselves to my neck, watching three days of meticulous planning dissolve into chaos, and I feel something break loose that might be a laugh or might be a sob or might be both.
The bonfire is ruined. The evening activity is cancelled. My blazer is destroyed. My task list is in shambles.
And I'm still standing here, soaked to the bone, too stubborn to go inside.